Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution
CHAPTER 26
1
2
•In 1834, the federal government had designated the Great Plains as one large reservation for Native Americans•Natives had adapted to the harsh land by giving up their farming heritage and becoming nomadic; using the horse to hunt buffalo
The Railroad• With the completion of the Transcontinental
Railroad in 1869, now US troops and white settlers had the ability to move into the West
3
The Clash of Cultures on the Plains• As the White settlers began to populate the
Great West, the Indians were caught in the middle– They turned against each other– They were infected with white man’s diseases– As the number of buffalo declined, tribes competed
for food– Stronger tribes (Sioux) claimed lands from weaker
tribes (Crow/Pawnee), displacing native groups much as the US government had done
4
Establishing the Reservation System
• The federal government signed treaties with the “chiefs” of “tribes
• The US govt did not understand (nor care to) the Native American society of scattered groups who did not recognize authority beyond the immediate family or village elder– Fort Laramie in 1851 – Fort Atkinson in 1853
• These treaties set up the reservation system• Implications??
5
The Clash of Cultures on the Plains• In the 1860s, the U.S. government intensified
its efforts by herding Indians into still smaller and smaller reservations (like the Dakota Territory)– Indians were often promised that they
wouldn’t be bothered further after moving out of their ancestral lands• Indian agents were often corrupt and
pawned off shoddy food and products• White men often disregarded treaties
and frequently swindled the Indians
6
The Plains Indian Wars
• Violent conflict between the Native Americans, US Army and Western settlers 1864 to 1890– After the Civil War, the U.S. Army’s new
mission became—go clear Indians out of the West for White settlers to move in
– 1/5 of the soldiers in the US Army sent west were African American men (Buffalo soldiers)
7
The Sand Creek Massacre• The gold and silver rush in the Rocky Mountains
brought thousands of white settlers west • Cheyenne and Arapahos tribes were pushed off their
land• Several attacks took place between natives and the
US Army, until the Natives decided to negotiate peace• Though no treaties were signed, the natives believed
that by reporting & camping near army posts, they would be declaring peace and accepting sanctuary.
8
• However on the day of the "peace talks” Col. Chivington received a telegram his superior officer informing him that "I want no peace till the indians suffer more...No peace must be made without my directions."
• Unaware of Curtis's telegram, Chief Black Kettle and some 550 natives, having made their peace, traveled south to set up camp on Sand Creek
9
The Sand Creek Massacre• Knowing that the indians had surrendered,
Chivington ordered his 700 troops to fire upon the camp, killed more than 150 Native Americans (warriors, women, & children)
• Many of the surviving warriors joined the Dog Soldiers, deciding there could be no successful negotiations with the white men and were waging war against them.
• Several of these warriors fought at the Battle of the Little Big Horn
10
11
The Bozeman Trail
• Settlers were using the Bozeman Trail to get to the west coast
• The trail went right through Sioux hunting grounds
• In December 1866, Crazy Horse and his warriors ambushed Captain Fetterman and his troops and killed 80 soldiers (Fetterman Massacre/Battle of the Hundred Slain)
13
Battle of the Little Bighorn River (Montana-- June 1876)
• George Custer's 7th Cavalry was sent to scout ahead for enemy troops.
• On the morning of June 25, Custer drew near the camp and decided to press on ahead rather than wait for reinforcements.
• At mid-day on June 25, Custer's 600 men entered the Little Bighorn Valley
• The 7th US Cavalry division, led by General George Custer, was outnumbered 4 to 1
14
• Within an hour the entire 7th cavalry was dead• “Custer’s Last Stand”• Decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S.
Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. • Many white Americans were outraged and this battle
confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty.
• The U.S. government increased its efforts to subdue the tribes. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne were forced onto reservations.
15
Custer’s Last Stand
Sitting Bull• Sioux chief that encouraged
members of his tribe to resist the reservation system
• He fled to Canada, but returned in 1881 and surrendered in order to prevent his people from starving
18
Gained fame in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show; earning $50 a week for riding once around the arena, in addition to whatever he could charge for his autograph and picture.
• The Nez Percé Indians also revolted when gold seekers arrived on their reservation
• The government favored white settlement and reduced the size of the reservation by 90%– Chief Joseph finally surrendered his band after a
1700 mile trek across the Continental Divide toward Canada
– The tribe was relocated to Kansas
19
Chief Joseph
20
It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.
• The most difficult Natives to subdue were the Apache tribes of Arizona and New Mexico– They were lead by Geronimo– Were excellent horse soldiers– They eventually surrendered
after being pushed to Mexico– Relocated to Oklahoma
21
The Bison• In the early days, tens of millions of bison
roamed the American prairie, and by the end of the Civil War, there were still 15 million buffalo grazing– The eruption of the railroad that really started
the buffalo massacre• Many people killed buffalo for their meat, their
skins, or their tongues• Others either killed the bison for sport or killed
them, took only one small part of their bodies, leaving the carcass to rot
– By 1885, fewer than a 1,000 buffalo were left22
Destruction of the Bison
23
“Helping” the Natives• Sympathy for the Indians
finally materialized in the 1880s
• Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, exposed the government mistreatment of the Natives
• Her other book, Ramona also told of the Indians' struggle
24
The End of the Trail• The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 dissolved the legal
entities of all tribes• Broke down tribal organization by dividing reservation
land for individual farms (violate native belief in land ownership)– 160 acres for head of household– 80 acres unmarried adult
• If the Indians behaved the way Whites wanted them to behave (farmers on reservations), they could receive full U.S. citizenship in 25 years
25
Forced Assimilation
• Humanitarians (Christian missionaries) wanted to kindly help Indians “walk the White man’s road”
• The Carlisle Indian School forced assimilation• Students were not permitted to speak in
their native language, call each other by native names, and were forced to give up clothing & adornments of their traditional lifestyle
26
The Ghost Dance• The Sioux who went to live on the Dakota reservation faced
disease and starvation• Indians believed this ceremony would return their traditional
ways• The Army believed Natives were planning an uprising
28
Death of Sitting Bull• On December 15, 1890, Sitting Bull was arrested • Military officials feared that he was organizing an
effort to lead people off the reservation again. • He was to be taken into custody and removed
from the reservation, but a number of Sioux men rallied to his side to prevent it.
• Someone fired a shot that hit one of the Indian police; they retaliated by shooting Sitting Bull in the chest and head.
29
The “Battle” of Wounded Knee• U.S. soldiers were ordered to confiscate the
weapons of Indians on the reservation out of fear of an armed uprising.
• On December 29, 1890, a man named Black Coyote (who may have been deaf or just did not understand the order given in English) refused to hand over his gun.
• He was confronted and a gunshot was fired, prompting several other Sioux and U.S. soldiers to fire their guns.
30
• Many in the Wounded Knee camp tried to flee the outbreak of violence, but the U.S. troops pursued those who ran and fired indiscriminately, killing women, children, and the elderly.
• 150-300 Natives were killed.• ***This marked the end of the Plains Indian
Wars***
31
Wounded Knee
32
Mining Leads to Westward Expansion
• Gold was discovered in California in the late 1840s, and in 1858
• The Comstock Lode in Nevada was discovered in 1859, and a fantastic amount of gold and silver worth more than $340 million was mined
• Smaller “lucky strikes” also drew money-lovers to Montana, Idaho, and other western states.
33
• Boom to bust--Anarchy in these outposts seemed to rule, but in the end, what was left were usually ghost towns
• After the surface gold was found, ore-breaking machinery was brought in to break the gold-bearing quartz
34
The Cattle Kingdom
• As cities back east boomed in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the demand for food and meat increased sharply
• The problem of marketing meat profitably to the public market and cities was solved by the new transcontinental railroads. Cattle could now be shipped to the stockyards
36
The Cattle Drives
• The “Long Drive” emerged to become a spectacular feeder of the slaughterhouses, as Texas cowboys herded cattle across desolate federal land to railroad terminals in Kansas– Chisholm Trail – Dodge City, Abilene, Ogallala, and Cheyenne
became favorite stopovers– Cowboys (Black, White, Mexican)
37
The Cattle Drives• The railroads made the cattle
herding business prosper, but it also destroyed it– The railroads also brought
sheepherders and homesteaders who enclosed their land with Glidden’s barbed-wire fences
– The fences that erased the open-range days of the long cattle drives
– Blizzards often killed a significant portion of the herds
39
End of the Cattle Kingdom
• Breeders started to fence in their ranches and downsized their herds
• As federal land was sold to homesteaders, there was no more free grazing
• Cowboys were left without work and became “plow boys”
40
Free Land for Farmers• The Homestead Act of 1862 (wanted by
Republicans during the Civil War)– Allowed people to get as much as 160 acres of
land, In return they promised to:1. Pay a filing fee of about $30.00 2. Live on homestead for five years3. Improve it (successful farm)
– It also allowed people to get land after only six month’s residence for $1.25 an acre ($200)
41
The Farmers’ Frontier• Before the Homestead Act the U.S. government
had sold land for revenue, now it was giving it away
• This act led half a million families to buy land and settle out West– It often turned out to be a cruel hoax because in the
dry Great Plains, 160 acres was rarely enough for a family to earn a living and survive
– Often, families were forced to give up their homesteads before the five years were up, since droughts, bad land, and lack of necessities forced them out
43
The Farmers’ Frontier
• Fraud was spawned by the Homestead Act, since almost ten times as much land ended up in the hands of land-grabbing promoters than in the hands of real farmers– Sometimes these cheats would not even live on
the land, but say that they’d built a “twelve by fourteen” dwelling—which later turned out to be twelve by fourteen inches!
44
Taming Western Deserts
• Due to higher wheat prices resulting from crop failures around the world, more people pushed further westward
45
• Geologist John Wesley Powell warned that so little rain fell west of the 100th Meridian, that successful farming could only be attained by massive irrigation
Farming Had Long Term Impacts• To counteract the lack of water (and a
six year drought in the 1880s), farmers developed the technique of “dry farming”-- Conserve limited moisture during dry weather by reducing or even eliminating runoff and evaporation
• Years of dry farming and over cultivation weakened the soil into fine particles
46
• Over time, this method created a finely pulverized surface soil that contributed to the “Dust Bowl” several decades later
• The Federal Government financed the construction of dams along the Missouri, Colorado and Colorado Rivers
47
The Far West Comes of Age
• New states like Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming were admitted into the Union
• Utah did not become a state until 1896 • By the 20th century, only Oklahoma, New
Mexico, and Arizona remained as territories
48
A) Explain the point of view reflected in the image regarding ONE of the followingMigrationTechnologyAmerican Indians
B) Explain how ONE element of the image expresses the point of view you identified in Part A
C) Explain how the point of view you identified in Part A helped to shape ONE specific United States government action between 1845 and 1900
50
Oklahoma• The U.S. government made available land that
had formerly belonged to the Native Americans• Thousands of “Sooners” jumped the boundary
line and illegally went into Oklahoma, often forcing U.S. troops to evict them
• On April 22, 1889, Oklahoma was legally opened, and 18 years later, in 1907, Oklahoma became the “Sooner State.”
51
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxaJY8UZxn4&safe=active
52
The Closing of the Frontier• Frederick Jackson Turner developed a thesis
which examined the impact of the end of westward expansion
• American history had always been about westward expansion. America was the Land of opportunity (although not equal opportunity)
• The frontier had come to represent democracy for the American pioneer
• No more westward land to settle…now what??
53
Conservation Before it’s Too Late
• National Parks emerged as some people became concerned that all of the American land would become personal property
• Yellowstone National Park was created in 1872• Yosemite and Sequoia parks were created
soon after
54
The Fading Frontier• The “safety valve theory” stated that the
frontier was like a safety valve for the overcrowded cities of the East– Assumed if the urban centers became too
over populated a person could always move west
– Few city-dwellers left the cities for the West, since they didn’t know how to farm
56
• The West increasingly became less and less a land of opportunity for farms, but still was good for hard laborers and ranchers
• Free acreage did lure a host of immigrant farmers to the West
• The lure of the West led to city employers raising wages to keep workers in the cities
57
The Farm Becomes a Factory• Bonanza Farms—large scale farms using technology to mass produce• Farmers were now increasingly producing single “cash” crops (wheat)• Profits were used to buy manufactured goods• California vegetables and fruits, harvested by poorly paid Mexican and
Asian workers were sold back East for profit
58
59
The Farm Becomes a Factory
• New inventions in farming, such as a steam engine that could pull a plow, seeder, or harrow, the new twine binder, and the combined reaper-thresher sped up harvesting and lowered the number of people needed to farm
60
Passing the Blame
• Farmers created many of their own problems through the use of new technology, but they often sought to blame banks and railroads for their losses rather than their own shortcomings
61
Deflation and the Debtor
• In the 1880s, farmers produced more crops and forced down prices (supply and demand), leading to more debt and no way to repay it
• Paying back debts was especially difficult in this deflation-filled time– Contraction--Less money in circulation
62
• Farmers operated year after year on losses and lived as best they could– Thousands of homesteads fell to mortgages and
foreclosures– Farm tenancy rather than farm ownership was
increasing
• The fall of the farmers in the late 1800s was similar to the fall of the South and its “King Cotton” during the Civil War– Depending solely on one crop was good in good
times but disastrous during less prosperous times
63
Unhappy Farmers• In the late 1880s and
early 1890s, droughts, grasshopper plagues, and searing heat waves made the toiling farmers miserable and poor
• City, state, and federal governments added to the farmers misery by a continual raising of taxes
64
Taking Advantage of the Farmers for Profit
1. The railroads hurt the farmers by fixing freight prices
2. The middlemen (by taking huge cuts in profits), 3. The various harvester, barbed wire, and fertilizer
trusts—put farmers at their mercy for supplies• In 1890, one half of the U.S. population still
consisted of farmers, but they were spread out among many states making it hard for them to organize
65
The Farmers Take Their Stand• In 1867, the National Grange
of the Patrons of Husbandry, (The Grange), was founded by Oliver H. Kelley
• Social and educational opportunities for isolated farmers
• Became more political as they sought to improve their situation
66
The Farmers Take Their Stand
• The Greenback Labor Party also attracted farmers
• In 1878, the Greenback Laborites polled over a million votes and elected 14 members of Congress– In 1880, the Greenbackers ran General James B.
Weaver, a Civil War general, but he only polled 3% of the popular vote
67
Prelude to Populism• The Farmers’ Alliance,(late 1870s), was
another coalition of farmers seeking to limit the power of the banks and railroads– Its programs only aimed at those who
owned their own land– More than ½ of the Southern farming
population was excluded as tenant farmers and/or black farmers (Black farmers formed the Colored Farmers National Alliance)
68
Populist PlatformThe Alliance members agreed on
• Nationalization of railroads• The abolition of national banks• A graduated income tax• A new federal sub-treasury for farmers
• Populists were led by Ignatius Donnelly from Minnesota & Mary Elizabeth Lease
• Both of whom spoke eloquently and attacked those that hurt farmers (banks, railroads, etc.)
69
The Wizard of Oz…A Political Satire?
• Some historians believe there are subliminal historical references within the children’s story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum
• Kansas—the land of the farmer
• Oz– a utopian land with no disease or poverty
• The Emerald City—Washington DC (powerful in part because of the wealth influencing politics)
• In the book, Dorothy’s slippers weren’t ruby, they were silver
• Munchkinland—a reference to the growing number of immigrants coming to America in search of a better life
•The Yellow Brick Road—symbolic of the gold standard that wealthy businessmen wanted the American economy to be based upon
• Uncle Henry—a typical farmer at the mercy of the crops, weather, and heavily in debt
• Dorothy—Populist Party supporter Mary Elizabeth Lease who spoke on behalf of America’s farmer
• The Scarecrow—Congressmen Jerry Simpson who wanted the economy to be based on silver
• The Tin Man—unemotional labor leader Eugene Debs, representing the working man who wanted the gold standard
• The Lion—Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan who “roared” in his speech but was seen as cowardly when called to put his plans into action
• The Wicked Witch of the East—Banker J.P. Morgan who didn’t care about the plight of the farmer
• The Wicked Witch of the West—Railroad tycoon Jay Gould who fixed railroad prices to hurt the farmers
• The Wizard –President Grover Cleveland who supported big business and the gold standard
Coxey’s Army• The Panic of 1893 fueled the passion of the
Populists. Many disgruntled unemployed fled to D.C. calling for change– Most famous of these people was “General”
Jacob Coxey. “Coxey’s Army” marched on Washington with scores of followers and many newspaper reporters. • They called for relieving unemployment by
implementing government public works programs
77
Coxey’s Army
78
The march fizzled out when they were arrested for walking on the grass
Pullman Strike (1894)
• What do you remember???
79
Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan• The leading Republican
candidate in 1896 was William McKinley
• Civil War major, Ohio Congressman
• His campaign was paid for by Marcus Alonzo Hannah (buying the election for $16 million in contributions??)
80
McKinley’s Platform• As a conservative in business, he adopted
laissez-faire economics• His platform was for the gold standard, even
though he personally was not• His platform also called for a gold-silver
bi-metalism, if all other nations would do the same
• This was a ploy to gain votes, other countries would never agree to the plan
81
Golden McKinley and Silver Bryan• William Jennings Bryan
– The Democrats were in disarray and unable to come up with a candidate, Bryan, the “Boy Orator of the Platte,” came to their rescue
– the Election of 1896, it was essentially the “Demo-Pop” party
82
• The Democratic ticket called for unlimited coinage of silver with the ratio of 16 silver ounces worth as much as one ounce of gold
• Democrats who would not stand for this left the party (Gold Bugs)
83
• 1896 Democratic Convention• "Having behind us the producing
masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."
84
Bryan’s Cross of Gold Speech
• Some common men were worried the silver would also reduce the value of their wages by half
• Crop prices increased and farmers became less worried about Republicans (during the “Good Times”)
• Factory workers had no reason to vote for inflation
• Bryan’s ideas seem too radical and many voted for the McKinley as the safer bet
85
Election of 1896
86
Plowholders Versus Bondholders• This election was perhaps the most important
since the elections involving Abraham Lincoln– privileged against the underprivileged – It resulted in a victory for big business and big
cities– End of the 3rd party system(high voter turn
out/close elections– Started Era of 4th party system (weak political
parties, poor voter turn out, $ issue fades away)
87
• The Election of 1896 could be called the “gold vs. silver” election
• The vote made it clear that Americans were going with gold
• Also in the election:– Farmers no longer catered to for their
vote—cities/immigrants/big business become focus of schmoozing
– The Republicans seized control of the White House for 16 consecutive years (all but 8 of the next 36 years)
88
Republicans Policy Enthroned
• When McKinley took office in 1897, he was calm and conservative, working well with his party and avoiding major confrontations
• The Dingley Tariff Bill was passed to replace the Wilson-Gorman law and raise more revenue, raising the tariff level to whopping 46.5 percent
89
